birding-aus

Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?

To: "'Nikolas Haass'" <>, "'Lloyd Nielsen'" <>, <>, "'Jeff Crocombe'" <>
Subject: Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?
From: "Jeff Davies" <>
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 2013 19:13:27 +1000
G'day everyone,

 

I couldn't really judge the original image for relative plainness of belly,
not enough focus, so here it is again after some Photoshop, but no noise
reduction.

I suspect it may have some faint streaking in there Lloyd which wasn't
apparent in the original version.

The feature that catches my eye is the feathered extension of the yellow
gape, it is well defined and joins with the gape to form a continuous
feature without the gape/feather change over being obvious. I tend to find
that in Graceful, the end of the yellow gape is more discrete and
discernible with the feathered extension being narrower than the gape and
the change over from fleshy gape to feathered extension is thus obvious.
This is my favourite feature for separating the two species.

 

Cheers Jeff.

 

 

 

 

From: Nikolas Haass  
Sent: Sunday, 8 September 2013 10:28 AM
To: Lloyd Nielsen; ; Jeff Crocombe; Jeff
Davies
Subject: Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?

 

Thanks Lloyd,

 

Interesting, so in other words, you are saying that this is a juvenile
Graceful H/E?

Jeff C., do you have more pictures of this bird?

Any further comments on the Leaden Flycatcher?

 

Cheers,

 

Nikolas

 

----------------
Nikolas Haass

Brisbane, QLD

 

  _____  

From: Lloyd Nielsen <>
To:  
Sent: Sunday, September 8, 2013 8:24 AM
Subject: Yellow-spotted or Graceful Honeyeater?


It is a Graceful Honeyeater - if it were a Yellow-spotted, it would have
more prominent striations on the underparts. Bill is more like Graceful
though bill shape and size is not a good field character - there is much
overlap. Having said that, bill of Yellow-spotted is generally slightly
shorter and thicker overall.

Jizz is typical Graceful but not Yellow-spotted which looks bigger and
chunkier. This bird has a "small bird" look. Earspot is small and typical
Graceful though what is written about earspot shape and difference between
the three species in the field guides is quite wrong.

I have all three species coming to a feeding platform at my kitchen window -
which highlights how wrong most of the information in the field guides is!
Best field characters for determining the difference between the three,
other than call, is near lack of striations on the underparts of Graceful
and a "small bird" look; blue eye and grey lores in Lewin's and noticeable
striations on the underparts; brown eye, striations on the underparts and
lack of grey lores in Yellow-spotted. Earspot shape, bill size etc does not
work. Graceful has a dark navy-blue eye in adults (often difficult to
determine) but brown in juveniles.

Lloyd Nielsen.

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